Update: One can watch the following video.
I'm pretty sure, with this post, some probably would say why I am getting so interested in Jiang's work. A simple answer is that his interviews frequently appeared in my YT feed and I'm curious on what else he has to say. A longer answer is that I've learned quite a few things from some of his interviews and lectures but at times I find myself cringing. No, I'm not turning into a conspiracist. Perhaps what I wanted to do is to explore his ideas and sieve the ones that I could use. In one video, he was telling that Isaac Newton's work include occult studies besides his more well-known work on classical mechanics; he even go further to say that his work on classical mechanics became more of a side study. I was not aware of this and it seems that there are books written on this matter (one even entitled Newton - The Last Sorcerer). Newton's own writing can be found in his book "Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John. So, in a way, what I wish to do with Jiang's ideas is a reverse process of what Jiang did with Newton's (occult) work i.e. stripping essentially certain speculative ideas from Jiang's work to make it more scientifically palatable.
Let me put down here some YT links just for my record. First, the Mehdi Hassan-Jiang full interview is now available. Despite Mehdi's aggressive jibes, Jiang seems to be able to react and answer questions pretty well. The one question that I was interested in how Jiang would react (see this post) is Mehdi's retort to Jiang's reservation of academia for being overly based on facts and rigour; Jiang simply explained the difference between facta and truth with the latter having an explanatory power. Given Jiang's popularity, some resort to attacking him. Some even accused him as teaching an empty class and his YT lectures are more of pretense. To this, some might want to listen to Kim Iverson-Jiang interview and also an old YT post where he introduced his students. Another interview that seems to be interesting is Patrick Bet-David-Jiang interview. Before that interview happened, Jiang expressed reservation in responding to the invitation for the interview, thinking it may be a trap. In a sense, there were a lot of questions for Jiang on China's stance, which can be problematic if Jiang is not careful. Finally, I will just say that Jiang has an interesting personality and he has undergone many difficulties. In some interviews, he had revealed his personal side on how he rexamined himself and tried to reinvent himself several times; he had tried to be a cook, a stand-up comedian (imagine that), rock-climbing, parkour and even sky-diving (which he himself do not recommend).
The main reason, I wanted to do this post is to 'push-back' a little on one of his 2026 prediction, namely the destruction of Al-Aqsa mosque (God forbid), I was wondering how such event would fit in a game-theoretic scheme that he conjured becaue such event could actually backfired. First, threats on Al-Aqsa mosque are not new. I remembered from several years back, Al-Aqsa mosque came under attack almost every Ramadhan. But in the last Ramadhan, Muslims were barred from performing congregational prayers until the 9th of this month (amounting to 40 days - anything to do with numerology?). There was certainly fear of some mischievous plans. Indeed there was a video clip of a Rabbi's desire of false flag operation in destroying Al-Aqsa mosque during the war with Iran. In addition, there are already excavation works under Al-Aqsa compound, that is susceptible to mischievous plans. Thus, it is not at all surprising to have extrapolated destruction plans of Al-Aqsa (God forbid).
It is interesting to observe that Jiang's prediction is mostly based on non-Islamic eschatology and there was little reference to Islamic eschatology. This is perhaps due to the fact that no sane Muslim would want to hasten the end times as it is considered the Age of the Great Fitan with the appearance of Dajjal (Anti-Christ). Indeed, from the Holy Qur'an, Luqman (31:34)
إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عِندَهُۥ عِلْمُ ٱلسَّاعَةِ وَيُنَزِّلُ ٱلْغَيْثَ وَيَعْلَمُ مَا فِى ٱلْأَرْحَامِ ۖ وَمَا تَدْرِى نَفْسٌۭ مَّاذَا تَكْسِبُ غَدًۭا ۖ وَمَا تَدْرِى نَفْسٌۢ بِأَىِّ أَرْضٍۢ تَمُوتُ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ خَبِيرٌۢ ٣٤
Indeed, Allah ˹alone˺ has the knowledge of the Hour. He sends down the rain, and knows what is in the wombs. No soul knows what it will earn for tomorrow, and no soul knows in what land it will die. Surely Allah is All-Knowing, All-Aware.
— Dr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran
Thus, Muslims tend to be 'passive' with respect to the Major Signs, or as Jiang remarked, 'Islam is too simple'. Another observation on this matter made by Sneako from Jiang's universal law of game theory (see this post), Muslims probably have quite a large weight on the mass factor but for coordination, the weight is probably very small.
As far as I was able to check, the Prophetic traditions are silent on what would happen to the Al-Aqsa mosque during end times (though there are traditions saying that the Dajjal will not be able to enter the mosques in Makkah and Madinah). Note: There are some reports about the 4 places that Dajjal could not enter which includes Al-Aqsa and Mosque of At-Tur (besides Makkah and Madinah), but I could not trace the hadith that states this. If there is such a hadith, then Al-Aqsa will still be there during End Times. We need to note however another matter, physical impairments/modifications of the holy mosques can happen and even the Black Stone (Hajar Aswad) of Kaabah had been stolen before (for over 20 years) and the stone has been broken. Rather than the physical buildings, it is their locations that are considered sacred. For Al-Aqsa, its holy ground is shown below within the green rectangle (source: Abu Muhammad Ridwan ibn Dawood's "Al-Aqsa, The Past, the Present and the Future')
May Allah protect Al-Aqsa and the people there. For the Muslims, suffice for us to recite in our prayers the following to soldier in these end times.
Allah Knows Best.
